10 Gimmicks WWE Cancelled For Being Too Successful
Getting over is a good thing, unless Vince McMahon doesn't want you to get over. From Rusev Day to Long Island Iced Z to Fandongoing, these are 10 WWE gimmicks cancelled for being too over.
Transcript
00:00 I know, you've read the title and now you're sad, don't worry I'm sad too.
00:04 Because when something in wrestling starts to get popular, it just lights a fire under
00:07 everyone's ass.
00:08 We all want to know where it's going to go and then poof, it's gone, it's dead,
00:12 it's over.
00:13 More fool us for caring.
00:14 So do you want to relive some of these?
00:16 Of course you do.
00:17 So hello, I am Simon from WhatCulture, please do hit that subscribe button.
00:21 And this is 10 Gimmicks WWE Cancelled For Being Too Successful.
00:25 10.
00:26 Fandango
00:27 I don't know whether WWE cancelled this one, but man did they get it wrong in the
00:31 aftermath.
00:32 Before we do go on, let's do what we have to do and we shall do it together in 3, 2,
00:37 1…
00:38 Sorry, I regret it.
00:41 Point is, after WrestleMania 29 when Fandango incredibly defeated Chris Jericho, the crowd
00:46 decided his theme music was awesome, so let's sing it all the time.
00:49 I'm sure it started as a joke, but the flipping song went to the top of some music chart,
00:53 so it all counts, and no matter where the popularity comes from, there are many ways
00:57 to capitalise on it.
00:58 Sadly, WWE thought the best way was to overproduce the hell out of this reaction and turn it
01:03 into almost a corporate folly, before remembering that Dango was meant to be a heel, so did
01:07 whatever they could to re-establish that.
01:09 It was so silly because the joy was right there, but no, we're not allowed to have
01:13 fun, go home and be miserable.
01:14 The ballroom dancer never got back to these levels because you usually only ever get one
01:18 shot at it, and who knows how nuts this could have gone.
01:21 You can dismiss it, but we will never know.
01:24 9.
01:25 Perry Satton and Moppy
01:26 This is always my go-to when people say wrestling needs to be less goofy in 2022, and that we
01:30 should head back to the good old days of the Attitude Era where things were more serious.
01:34 Okay, so let's discuss 2001, when Perry Satton fell in love with a mop.
01:39 This happened as punishment after Satton had been way too stiff with an opponent in the
01:42 ring, so somebody came up with the idea that he could be in a relationship with a cleaning
01:47 utensil.
01:48 I mean, it's so absurd, it was always going to work in some fashion.
01:50 This is exactly what happened when fans started to make noise when Perry and his mop came
01:54 to the ring.
01:55 So what did we do?
01:56 End the whole thing at Unforgiven that year, where Satton and Raven's feud came to an
02:00 end.
02:01 I think this would have been fine too if this was because we had something else for the
02:03 former WCW man to do.
02:05 I doubt he enjoyed being shacked up with a mop.
02:07 But no, instead he did nothing before getting released.
02:11 This whole thing was bizarre.
02:12 8.
02:13 Damien Mizdow
02:14 Now we're getting into the good stuff, because you can't argue this one.
02:18 Not only did Damien Sandow achieve success once with his intellectual saviour gimmick
02:22 that got fans to cheer him despite the fact he was an asshole, he did it again when he
02:26 teamed up with The Miz.
02:27 This was even more impressive because beforehand he had been given the Money in the Bank briefcase
02:31 and lost it, which never used to happen, so no one was that bothered or fool us.
02:36 Why?
02:37 Because Sandow became Mizdow and decided he would be a stunt double.
02:40 That meant throwing himself to the ground any time The Miz took a fall, and so ridiculous
02:44 it became the best thing on the show, Damien was oddly good at it.
02:47 All we had to do was get to WrestleMania 31 and the Andra the Giant Memorial Battle Royal
02:52 and have Mizdow throw out his mentor to finally be done with him, and while we did do that,
02:56 seconds later the Big Show appeared behind him and eliminated him too.
03:00 Like somebody popping your happy birthday balloon.
03:02 Damien also lost to The Miz during the feud and after cutting a promo saying the stilly
03:06 stuff was gone, started to pretend he was the Macho Man.
03:10 That one was as bad as it sounded and honestly, what on earth were we doing?
03:13 7.
03:14 The Jilted Lover Matt Hardy
03:15 I know I say this a lot, but I feel it's important.
03:18 I would rather that no story or character was born out of the things we're about to
03:21 talk about, and thankfully there is no beef between any of these folk and everything is
03:25 good.
03:26 But back in 2005, Matt Hardy found out his girlfriend Lita was cheating on him with best
03:30 friend Edge and things went bad.
03:33 Hardy made such a public fuss he got released, but after a swell of fan support was back
03:37 on TV in just a few months with an awesome angle, he was breaking into events and causing
03:41 havoc and it just worked so well.
03:43 All we had to do was push him right and remind the crowd how much he had been screwed over,
03:47 but we didn't.
03:48 Instead, the Rated R Superstar ruined him in the feud, meaning the guy who lost his
03:52 partner and buddy also got beaten up, before he got moved to Smackdown and we acted like
03:57 none of this had happened.
03:59 6.
04:00 Swing King Cesaro
04:01 Do you remember when Paul Heyman was the manager of Cesaro?
04:04 That did not go to plan.
04:06 It all happened after the Swiss Superman had won the first ever Andre Battle Royal, which
04:09 seemed like a good sign at the time, even more so when he and expected winner Big Show
04:13 shook hands.
04:14 Cesaro was always going to be a better babyface than Hill too, and it felt like we all knew
04:18 that.
04:19 Because just as he was ready to simmer away, WWE decided to pair Cesaro with Heyman and
04:23 told everyone to stop cheering.
04:25 They also started to take away all of the moves the audience liked which left us with
04:28 one question, if this is what the company wanted, why did he get the big WrestleMania
04:33 push?
04:34 We shall never know the answer, which is why I just want to forget about it.
04:37 Although I did just remind you, so what an idiot I am.
04:41 5.
04:42 B+ Player Daniel Bryan
04:43 So there are some asterisks to this one, but Daniel Bryan even wrote about it in his book.
04:47 In 2013 when he was becoming the most popular dude imaginable, WWE tried to stop this dead.
04:53 Why Batista won the Raw Rumble in 2014, and why the Yes Man wasn't even in the match,
04:58 we were trying to nip this in the bud.
04:59 Unfortunately for the powers that be, fans weren't going to back down with this one,
05:02 and with no other choice, WWE retroactively tried to fit a story around it.
05:07 In short, Bryan was flagged as a B+ player, which was the real reason he was never able
05:11 to make it to the main event, and for a while, they honestly thought this would keep him
05:14 in the mid card.
05:15 Nope.
05:16 The lies here come because of course Daniel overcame all of this to absolutely smash it
05:20 and win the world title, so it did work out.
05:22 Just don't let anybody tell you this was in the plans, because it wasn't.
05:26 Thank goodness we did follow through though.
05:28 It's still one of the best moments in recent memory.
05:30 Before Long Island IZ Zack Ryder
05:33 Zack Ryder was so ahead of his time with this, that if somebody wanted to do the same today,
05:37 they couldn't.
05:38 According to footage of YouTube, in 2011, Ryder realised he wasn't getting anything
05:41 on TV, so why shouldn't he just make his own show?
05:44 It was a wonderful mismatch of insider jokes and someone being a fan, and surprise surprise
05:49 it did the numbers, who knew being entertaining would work.
05:52 It got so much steam, fans at shows started to shout his name, and a 'We want Ryder'
05:56 chart even happened when The Rock was in the ring, think of that.
06:00 There was a clear resistance to this at first, before the popularity was acknowledged, and
06:04 sure, Zack was the US Champion for a while.
06:06 From then though, my word, the poor guy was treated like he'd slighted the company.
06:11 Before Long his on-screen relationship with John Cena had resulted in Ryder being cheated
06:15 on by girlfriend Eve Torres, and after we made sure he lost all the time, we moved on
06:19 from this as fast as we could.
06:21 It is still totally crazy, even more so when you see what Matt Cardona is doing today,
06:25 I swear.
06:26 3.
06:27 Rusev Day
06:28 Right, I've been dreading this one, but we can get through it together, alright.
06:32 But yeah, I love Rusev, and I love Rusev Day so much.
06:35 In one video years ago, I stuck Rusev Day signs all over my body.
06:39 I can't justify that, and it is odd, but I just believed in it and this is how I chose
06:43 to express myself.
06:44 You'll be shocked to hear it didn't help.
06:46 All the way back in 2017, it did feel like we had finally found the breakthrough idea
06:50 for Rusev, as he teamed with Aiden English and Lana and told us every day was Rusev Day.
06:54 It is ludicrous to say out loud, which made it even better, and as this was coming off
06:58 a 10 second loss to Randy on a SummerSlam, it got people talking.
07:01 It was soon passed off as a fleeting thing, but when every single venue was chanting it,
07:05 buying t-shirts and calendars, it was quite clear that this is the direction to head in,
07:09 so what did we do?
07:10 Burned it to death.
07:11 Apparently happening after Vince McMahon told the future Miro that fans were only doing
07:15 this as a joke, the group was broken up, and Rusev was put with Shinsuke Nakamura.
07:19 To this day, I do not know why it was such a waste, and I still cry myself to sleep about
07:24 it.
07:25 2.
07:26 Bad News Barrett
07:27 Wade Barrett was turned into Bad News Barrett, and quite literally went around telling people
07:32 bad news.
07:33 You could only do this in wrestling, but because he committed to it, it began to work.
07:37 Fans wanted to hear what awful thing he was going to break every single week.
07:40 Instead of this being a lightbulb moment for someone backstage, however, Wade was pulled
07:44 aside and basically told off for getting these reactions, as he was meant to be a bad guy.
07:49 As the man himself has said, he had to knock it on the head after that because too many
07:53 people were joining in, but that's the point of wrestling.
07:56 What kind of message that sends to the rest of the locker room too I don't know, because
07:59 it sounds like WWE would rather the crowd was bored by a heel rather than be entertained.
08:05 To cut the whole gimmick short because of this too, pfft, no wonder Barrett left when
08:09 he did.
08:10 What else could he possibly do after this?
08:11 1.
08:12 The Stooges
08:13 Didn't see that one coming, did you?
08:15 Well, sometimes it's good to have fun with these lists, especially when they've been
08:18 so upsetting.
08:19 There are loads you could pick from as well as it's happened a lot, but it's far funnier
08:22 to talk about Pat Patterson and Gerald Briscoe as Vince McMahon's lackeys, because they
08:26 were awesome together.
08:27 They looked like idiots constantly and were so willing to do whatever they were asked
08:30 that fans started to love these two, which is why one day they started to feature less
08:34 and less I am not kidding.
08:36 Briscoe recently talked about this during his podcast and hearing that broke my heart.
08:40 The straw that broke the camel's back was when Vinny Mac saw a bunch of sides in the
08:43 crowd on Raw, and from the mid-2000s, they became less of a thing.
08:47 Don't try and make any sense of this either, there is none, just weird decisions by at
08:51 times a very weird company.
08:53 Who knows why they do any of it when they're meant to be putting smiles on people's faces.
08:58 Know any other gimmicks that WWE cancelled for being too successful?
09:01 Make sure you let us know in the comments below and don't forget to like the video,
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09:15 My name is Simon from WhatCulture, thank you very much for listening to me as always, and
09:19 And remember to shoot for the stars, because up there is where it is shiniest.